IWS Group Announcement – Anco

IWS Group Announces Acquisition of Anco Storage Equipment Ltd

We’re very excited to announce our parent company, IWS Group, has acquired Anco Storage Equipment Ltd, the largest trade-only supplier of storage solutions in the UK.

Established in 1991 in West Sussex, Anco has gained an enviable reputation for quality and service at a competitive price. Exclusively through its trade-only distribution channel, Anco offers an extensive range of over 7,000 variations of products, covering all kinds of applications from industrial racking, multi-tier projects and mezzanine flooring, to office archive storage and modular shelving. Anco stores over £3M worth of stock in their warehouse to facilitate quick turn-around times on orders.

Anco

What does this mean for Brandsafe and its Customers?

Anco and its wealth of storage solutions is the perfect complement to IWS Group’s growing portfolio of innovative industrial workspace brands. This acquisition will no doubt further strengthen our product offering, resource, infrastructure, and capability, to provide our customers and partners with a complete warehouse lifecycle solution. In particular, for Brandsafe customers, it not only enhances our range offering, but provides a whole new category of products and services available to you.

Strengthening the IWS Group Portfolio

IWS Group is a rapidly growing family of market-leading product brands and service companies which provide essential supplies and services to the warehouse and logistics, material handling, and industrial sectors.

The group portfolio currently includes Beaverswood, Brandsafe, Rack Group, and now Anco.

“We’re thrilled to welcome Anco to the IWS family,” said Jeroen van den Berge, CEO of IWS Group, “Anco’s wealth of storage solutions, its team of specialists and its long history of building strong partnerships with its distributor network are the perfect complement to our growing portfolio of innovative industrial workspace brands. Our vision is to be the partner of choice for essential products & services throughout the lifecycle of an industrial building, and this acquisition is a natural progression towards this end.”

Visit: www.iws.group

About Beaverswood

Beaverswood manufactures innovative products that improve the efficiency, safety, and sustainability of the physical workspace. The Beaverswood range of warehouse safety and management products includes labelling and signage, recycling solutions, identification products and visual communication solutions.

Visit: www.beaverswood.co.uk

About Rack Group

Rack Group is the UK’s leading provider of warehouse racking solutions that focus on prolonging the life and safety of racking. These solutions, which include racking inspection; repair; maintenance and training, are provided to many of the biggest household names across the UK. Its range of racking protection includes the market leading brand Rack Armour.

Visit: www.therackgroup.com

If you have any questions about IWS Group’s range of products and services, please feel free to contact us.

What to use when Armco Barriers can’t be installed

The overall footprint of a warehouse is rarely straightforward, creating challenges in managing traffic safety. So, it’s handy to know what to use when Armco Barriers can’t be installed.

One of the most widely used and effective ways to meet safety obligations on a warehouse site is Armco barrier installations wherever HGVs and LGVs operate. They are also used on countless public roads, as their clever design reduces driver injury and vehicle damage.

Armco is the safety product of choice not just for exits, entrances and approach roads, but also for many loading bays and yards.

However, this article looks at what to use when Armco Barriers can’t be installed. The truth is, there will be sections of your warehouse exterior and interior that are too complex or compact to accommodate the lengths of these recommended traffic safety products.

Creating or updating your impact protection strategy

Regular risk assessments across your site are vital for compliance and to reach your own company targets on safety. They also avoid damage to structures, vehicles and equipment that could lead to business interruption or big repair bills!

It could be that on your next site layout evaluation, you locate more places to install Armco barriers.

If you browse a comprehensive list of Armco warehouse products and accessories, you may be surprised by how versatile the range is. Including wall mounted Armco barriers, and various safety ends and caps that make the ImpactSAFE shock-absorbent sections practical to use where pedestrians pass by,

The advantages of Armco Barriers are well known. When correctly specified and installed, they are unrivalled in their ability to absorb impact and minimise vehicle damage. They are also robust and durable.

We make buying and installing Armco barriers inexpensive and easy too, including free advice on Armco barrier sizing and accessory lists.

What to use when Armco Barriers can’t be installed

It is not possible to rely entirely on this stellar safety product for all of your warehouse traffic management though. The biggest obstacle is often a lack of space to use these barriers, or a need to install a quick to amend safety system.

Fortunately, there are effective alternatives, such as the following.

Flexible Bollards

This is a low-cost impact safety product that enables you to be highly responsive in the way you install your traffic management aids.

What to use when Armco Barriers can't be installed - Bollards

Installing flexible bollards and delineators is quick and easy. Yet, they are excellent at creating a hi-vis boundary between vehicles and pedestrians or highlighting structural hazards and no-go zones.

If the flexible bollards do get hit or scuffed, they are engineered to flex, bend and crush, then return to their original shape.

Simple, but effective, they can be erected in a number of places, including compact areas where on and off-road vehicles do intricate manoeuvres.

Safety barriers for warehouses

There are other safety barriers for warehouses that are versatile alternatives to Armco barriers too. Including impact absorbent barriers you can erect where vehicles manoeuvre around sensitive structures or employee work areas.

What to use when Armco Barriers can't be installed - Guardrail Systems

Some warehouse safety barriers are heavy-duty metal, of course, and designed to protect pedestrians in a robust manner. There are also guards and handrails for warehouses that focus on human safety, rather than minimising vehicle damage in workplaces.

However, heavy-duty steel guard systems can ensure that vehicle impact doesn’t bring down major structures or racking or put drivers at risk of hitting electrical equipment, for example.

Advice on improving warehouse impact management

Many warehouse sites benefit from a mixture of Armco barriers for major inroads and loading bays, and more versatile alternatives in more compact operational zones.

Brandsafe is a leading stockiest of Armco products and solutions for when Armco Barriers can’t be installed.

If you are unsure how to configure both Armco barriers and alternative traffic safety features, we can help. Using our extensive experience – and problem-solving skills for even the most demanding and complex warehouse sites – we can ensure you create a compliant and efficient barrier system. This could be tailored specifically to your site layout, operations and risks, with well-managed costs too!

Ask us about previous project management of warehouse impact management strategies and installations.

Save on car repair bills with simple and cheap solutions

Traffic management in workplaces is not simply about compliance with H&S rules. Some vehicle safety measures also help you to save on car repair bills with simple and cheap solutions.

It’s easy to think that only organisations dealing with HGVs and LGVs need to regularly review their private roads, car parks and vehicle exits/entrances. However, all workplaces need to source and install products that save on car repair bills with simple and cheap solutions.

That’s because you are likely to have a staff or visitor cars – or sales vehicles, for instance – moving around your premises. Plus, no one wants the embarrassment of an important customer reporting dented bodywork!

Being really thorough in the way you protect vehicles from damage serves another purpose too. It avoids business interruption if a car your organisation depends on is out of action to fix avoidable damage.

HSE rules on preventing vehicle damage

Before looking at the products you can buy to protect cars transiting your site, let’s explore the legal responsibilities you have to avoid accidents and incidents, using sensible traffic management systems.

Clearly, both off and on-road vehicles can do a lot of damage if they hit a pedestrian, even at low speeds. Also, collisions with other vehicles or workplace structures put drivers at risk. The simple act of manoeuvring into a parking space can be problematic in many environments.

For this reason, the Health & Safety Executive issued strict guidelines for workplace transport, including rules on parking safely on private and public sector sites.

Compliance hinges on a thorough risk assessment. This should especially focus on areas where vehicles and pedestrians are both on the move and key spaces where cars tend to carry out manoeuvres such as reversing.

Of course, there are also clear rules on limiting speed on commercial premises and the things you need to do to maintain your car park properly.

Simple, cheap measures to save on car repair bills

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Prevention is always better than the cure, and that certainly applies if you want to stay compliant with workplace traffic management regulations and find ways to save on car repair bills with simple and cheap solutions.

Road and parking maintenance

The foundations of avoiding vehicle damage around your workplace are literally the foundations of your outside area! For instance, is the ground level, with good drainage? Relocating parking to firmer ground with less risk of wheels slipping could be a practical way to limit accidents and incidents.

Well mapped traffic flow and parking

This leads to the wisdom of reviewing how vehicles transit your site, and the spaces set aside for visitor and staff parking for example. Has it been strategically managed, or has it evolved over time?

You may want to refresh how vehicles move on-site and where they park if your business has become busier too.

Signage and lighting

These are both important measures in maintaining site safety and avoiding damage to vehicles.

There are many inexpensive traffic management signs you can buy to give drivers clear directions and safety information. As well as vital signs to segregate vehicles and pedestrians.

This also requires you to install good site lighting for darker or shorter days. Drivers need to be able to see signs, people, structures and road edges with ease. Do you also need hi-vis barriers along roadways and around car parks?

Staff and visitor guidance

Make your rules on safe parking and transit clear, and strictly enforced. This means training staff on your traffic management protocols and issuing pre-arrival instructions for site visitors.

Buy car wheel stops

Save on car repair bills with Wheel Stops

This truly is a cheap but effective way to avoid vehicle damage! You simply need to buy and install car wheel stops to keep vehicles parked safely.

Clearly, these need to be clear to see! Our quality car wheel stops are designed to be robust, and quick to install, but also unmissable for both drivers and pedestrians.

Commercial site speed bumps

They are not always popular, but well-made speed bumps are a highly effective way to maintain site safety.

Find a supplier of quality domestic speed bumps suitable for cars, rather than heavy-duty traffic calming measures for lorries. You don’t want your speed bump to present a risk, rather than a way to avoid car damage.

Save on car repair bills with Speed Bumps

We sell speed bump kits for cars (made from recycled truck tyres) that are versatile, low-cost, high quality and easy to install.

Help with traffic management measures

If you have a complex site or heavy traffic use to manage, it can be hard to know which safety products are best, and where to install them. This is also true if the layout of your roads, car parks, yards and loading bays is out of date or constantly changing.

Brandsafe would be pleased to provide a free survey to map out measures that improve your site safety and which save on business car repair bills.